A French and a Swiss envoy are visiting Colombia to meet the new top commander of the country’s main leftist rebel group and discuss the possible liberation of hostages, the Colombian president’s press secretary disclosed on Monday.
“The two European delegates entered Colombia in the past few days, asked the government for authorization to head out for this direct encounter with the FARC’s Secretariat — authorization conceded by the government,” Cesar Mauricio Velasquez said.
Colombian officials say the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, hold about 700 hostages, including three US military contractors and Ingrid Betancourt, a dual French-Colombian citizen who was running for Colombia’s presidency when she was kidnapped in 2002. Betancourt is a cause celebre in Europe and French President Nikolas Sarkozy has vigorously sought her release.
The French and Swiss mission “seeks a prisoner swap tending toward the liberation of all the hostages,” Velasquez told Bogota-based Caracol Radio.
Colombian military operations were not suspended during their visit, he added.
A senior Colombian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information, earlier identified the two envoys as Noel Saez of France and Jean Pierre Cotard of Switzerland.
It was not known whether the pair in fact met with Alfonso Cano, who was named senior FARC leader after the rebels’ longtime patriarch and co-founder, Manuel Marulanda, died of a heart attack on March 26 at age 78.
Colombia has long authorized France, Switzerland and Spain to negotiate with the FARC regarding a prisoner swap. Their efforts have had little success amid a military offensive that has driven the FARC — including Cano — into near hibernation.
On March 1, FARC’s foreign minister, Raul Reyes, was killed in a Colombian raid in Ecuador. Reyes had been France’s lone interlocutor.
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s government has been unable to agree with the FARC on terms for a meeting on neutral ground that could facilitate an eventual prisoner swap.
The guerrillas freed six civilian hostages in January and February in an effort brokered by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. But the FARC subsequently said there would be no more unilateral releases.
Chavez recently called on the FARC to free all its hostages and lay down its arms.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS